A leading candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Missouri recently blamed the problem of human trafficking on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s during remarks he gave at a religious conference.

Josh Hawley, the state’s attorney general and the Trump-endorsed candidate as the party tries to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill

.. one of his opponents for the Republican nomination, Courtland Sykes, who criticized feminists and career-focused women as “nail-biting manophobic hellbent feminist she-devils” and said he expected his fiancee to make dinner for him every night.

.. The sexual liberation of the 1960s was part of a cultural upheaval that included the growth of the feminist and gay rights movements. It was not clear how exactly Hawley connected the sexual openness of the decade to human trafficking.

.. She said that sex trafficking has been

She said that sex trafficking has been an issue in the United States as long as the country has been around and added that it drew attention after the Civil War.

“There are quite a few politicians, both Republican and Democrat, who try to use the issue to help themselves get elected without doing much research,” Mehlman-Orozco said. “It’s a bipartisan issue that most people can come behind.”

.. Another man seeking the state’s Republican nomination, Austin Peterson, compared Hawley’s statements to those made by another candidate who had tried unsuccessfully to unseat McCaskill during a previous election cycle. Former U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R)

.. “It would also be great if GOP Senate candidates could stop writing Claire’s attack ads and fundraising emails for her,” Peterson said, according to the Star. “These comments do nothing but foster a Todd Akin-style culture war that the GOP will lose to a formidable female incumbent.”